


No More, Please Support me

by Random_ag



Series: Tortured Tales [6]
Category: The Man With Eyes - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mild Blood, Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Vomit, good ending, self-harm (hitting head)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: Joey has a breakdown.Malcolm cares for his brother-in-law.
Relationships: Joey Drew/Malcom McNamara
Series: Tortured Tales [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023520
Kudos: 1





	1. Please...

No more.

Joey bit the inside of his cheek. It tasted weird; it tasted the way a desert looks. Dusty, furred on the tongue, like raw bread dough spread across his entire mouth, causing it to cling and stick.

No more.

He inhaled through dry lips. His head felt blank and floaty, his face unbearably hot. It was as if he had turned into an exhausted lightbulb, flickering on its last bits of fire. He stared at the sink and tried to spit. Dry heaving, his throat hacking knives into the jugular that energized it. Nothing came out.

No more.

He had not slept. He had not eaten. He wanted desperately to drink something and wash his mouth of the horrid taste, but his brain had decided all liquid in the house was absolutely illegal. He could feel his skull crack slowly under the weight of a splitting headache as if hacked down with an ax.

No more, please, no more.

No more nightmares, nor visions, nor terrifying sudden thoughts that assaulted him out of nowhere on a whim. He wanted so badly to forget everything about himself and start anew: turning into a brand new person, completely different from who he was, how hard could that have been? Letting all memories of this life he had led melt off of him with his face and morphing what remained into a better man, how hard could that have been? He had often dreamt and to this day still longed for a chance of one day performing on a theatre stage; how many steps stood between simple acting and permanently changing into a different entity entirely?

Man or woman, neither or both, animal or plant, none of that mattered. He just wanted nothing to do with himself anymore. He just wanted to see himself disappear in a bad magician's trick and never reappear again. He could have still been Joey Drew for all he cared - just a different one. A different version, a better version, even a worse version, anything was fine.

He was tired of being Joseph.

So tired.

Melt him off in acetone, please, and let the wretched being he was become no more.

No more.

His head was spinning. Spinning fast so fast it was almost violent, like a top. Like a, a, how had, how had Grant called… like a, like a dreidel. The bathroom spun around him in the opposite direction. He bit his upper lip and opened his mouth to inhale, and the air made a metallic noise as it passed through his throat. He watched as the sink shifted and doubled beneath him while he painfully rose his heavy head to look at himself in the mirror.

For a moment, his own face responded to his gaze: dark shadows beneath empty eyes, hair covered in disgusting grease, a lopsided, hateful smile flashing its pitch black gap at him. He nearly laughed at it; he certainly would have if he had still had the strength.

The pale skin burned away into night blue, two bright colored flowers emerging from its depths, as long clawed arms left the mirror to ensnare his face and the back of his neck. They pushed him back, held him tight, stared into his splintered soul.

No more.

Joey smiled wide: “No more,” he repeated, nodding in agreement, tears digging into his flesh, “Please, no more,” and his voice trembled as he tried to grab the ethereal wrists in vain, knuckles breaking on the white ceramic after attempting to hold onto air, “Please, please…”

The dark blue void leaned into him, orange lily and azure peony merging petals into one gorgeous flower as it approached his grey eyes. It would have changed him. It would have made him another person. It would have erased him completely, morphed him beyond the point of recognition. It would have melted him.

No more, please.

Joey clutched the sink and slammed his forehead against the mirror, carving deep cracks into it. His elbows buckled and caused him to crash into the metal faucet; he raised his head again with great difficulty only to crash it again into the ceramic sink. His knees crashed beneath him and sent him plummeting on the bathroom floor. His mouth opened to give way to a wave of bile and digestive acids that fell all over the tiles. His eyes burned with salt that made his cheeks stung.

He screamed his entire being off, bleeding in his vomit.

No more. 


	2. I've Got You

“Can you hear me? Joey, Joey, talk - can you talk to me? I'm right here, Joey, I've got you. Speak to me. Please, speak to me.”

Voice. Sweet. Kind… Malcolm. Joey heard Malcolm. He could not answer. He was on the floor. His face was covered in his own puke. And blood. He was pulled up. Somebody else spoke: “Should I do something?”

Joey inhaled. He puked on the tiles. Malcolm's hands shifted him. He grabbed the toilet as he found it. He puked inside of it. His empty stomach twisted.

Malcolm again: “Tissues, paper tissues, could you fetch me some, please?”

Joey puked again.

“I've got you.” Malcolm assured him, rubbing circles on his back. “I've got you.”

He puked three more times. Then stopped. His throat hurt. Malcolm turned him around. A black blur passed him some tissues. He wiped Joey's face clean. He kept speaking to him. Reassurances. “I've got you.”. Joey could not answer. Malcolm checked his wounds. The blur passed some cotton soaked in sanitizer. It stung over the cuts. They wrapped them in gauze to stop the bleeding.

“I've got you.”

“Should I do something else?”

“No, no, don't worry. You've done so much already. Thank you, really, I'll take it from here.”

Malcolm sustained him. Held him up - took him to his bed. Sat him there. Propped him up with a pillow.

“Joey?” Joey breathed in and gagged. “I'll get you a basin-”

“No…” he coughed. He swallowed, trembling and recoiling: “No. ‘m fine. Won't puke again.”

Malcolm sat back next to him. His thumb rubbed the back of Joey's hand, waiting for the other's shaking to quell.

“Joey… you'll need stitches. Would you like to go to the hospital?” he asked very softly, avoiding the most concerning question. He watched as Joey grimaced, and held his hand a little tighter. “If you want, I know a private clinic instead that does home care… if I call them now it will take them forty minutes, an hour tops to get here.”

Joey licked his dry lips. He was hazy with hunger, exhaustion and dehydration, but he managed to nod and rasp out a ‘yes, please’. Malcolm smiled.

“Would you like some tea, too?”

He nodded again: “Please.”

“I'll get that for you.” the other assured him, “You try to rest a little. I'll be right here, ok?”

Joey closed his eyes for a second as the lawyer left. He opened them, and Malcolm was by his side again with a fuming cup in his hands. It had a vaguely sweet smell of fruit, particularly raspberry; the drink's warmth was comforting when it was passed to him. He did not sip it.

“Malcolm?” he whispered weakly. The lawyer focused on him. “Could you… turn me into someone else?”

The other sat silent for a few moments.

“Of course.” he whispered. He tapped Joey's leg, counting slowly as he carefully spelled each tap: “One, two… and you’re my son's beloved uncle. Or one, two… and you're my dear friend. Or one, two… here's a gentle, caring man.”

“No...” Joey murmured. He looked numb. “Someone new…”

Malcolm hushed. He knew a few ways someone could change into someone new, but those all required another person - whether joining or fading from one’s life - rather than pointing out who someone already was or changing who they were at a core level, removing any and all traces from who they used to be. He played with the fabric of Joey's pants.

“How about… my… maybe, sorta boyfriend?”

It was a joke (it _was_ a _joke_ , he repeated to himself), but when Joey's empty eyes lit up, and he breathed so softly, “Yes… Yes, please...”, smiling, Malcolm felt his entire face burn and his heart pound madly.

So he laughed. Just a little bit, to relieve tension. Joey giggled with him.

“Though you should… ask me out first...”

It was a joke. He could not have been serious.

“You're right, you're right. Baby steps.”

It was a joke.

The ex-animator gulped down a sip of tea. His hand laid on the lawyer's.

“Can I ask you another favor?” he asked, voice hoarse. Malcolm nodded. “Could… could you give me a kiss? A get-well-soon-kiss or… or a you-absolute-cretin-kiss, or-”

His dark hair was pulled back; Malcolm’s lips pressed softly on a spot on his forehead where he was sure there were no wounds. Joey closed his eyes and melted into the contact.

“Get well soon.” Malcolm whispered.

I'll try, Joey promised.


End file.
